Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Inequality in Schools?
Most of this class probably attended a formal high school before coming to college. I know that both of the high schools that I attended had an excess of programs, sports, and activities to keep kids interested in school. The graduation rate at both schools was well about 90%, and most seniors had plans for college. Unfortunately, this is not true for all schools. According to the article, schools with higher populations of black and Mexican students have a significantly lower graduation rate. Whats more, they also lack funding for after school programs, and their teachers are paid much less than schools with a higher percentage of white students. Is this a coincidence? Kozol does not believe so, but there are many factors that add to whether or not a school gets funding and whether or not students graduate. What are these factors? Why are they important?
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4 comments:
It's sad that some schools don't have faith in their graduating seniors or their students for even graduating high school. I think that is why they don't bother having after school activities and teachers being paid less. There is also the fact of what city or town this high school is in. If the high school is in a city or town that is poorer then the schools probably believes that their students are working to help pay for things at home like food, bills etc. If students aren't showing up to class or passing with grades that the state thinks is normal/average, why fund the school for after school activites or pay the teachers more?
Many schools that don't have after school activities and have their teachers being paid less are like that because of financial constraints. If a private school that isn't recieving a lot of funding can barely aford whatever bills they have they aren't going to worry about afterschool activites and won't be able to pay the teachers too well. If the teachers are not being paid well they might not care about their students or jobs as much as they would otherwise and not try to push for the students to graduate and go on to college. If a public school is in this situation it is also probobly because of poor funding and most likely the state isn't really paying attention to the school. This shouldn't be able to go on because it's just affecting people like us and ruining their lives.
I feel that location is everything. It doesnt matter about what is being put in a certain spot, if it is not the correct location, funds might not always be available. For instance if I was to put a Laundry at the tollway on Annie Glitten Road, nine times out of ten, I will not get much attention or service for the simple fact that the location is wrong. However, If I was to put one in the center of campus, I might have a little more luck, but that would be limited for the student that do not have huskie buck. So I feel that the location of a school is highly benificial. There is a school in downtown Chicago, they can practically do anything that they want and treat certain people the way that they want to because of the funds coming in. However if this same school was on the Southside of chicago, they would not even survive.
Location is very important.
Some of these schools that don't have the activities that most other schools have, could be a result of poor neighborhoods, small population, or even elderly people living in the area not wanting to pay more taxes. I know from personal experience that my high school right now is at the verge of losing its sports and AP classes because the town which is made up of almost 60% elderly do not want to pay higher taxes. Which in turn later they also complain that todays kids aren't getting a good enough education, which is just naive of them to not notice that its their fault. The school condition can be ruined by just the lack of funding because instead of money going to schools that need it so students can learn more and raise the test scores, the money is going to schools that already have high test scores so they can get higher and the schools with the low test scores get screwed out of new books; then the state government wonders why that school is doing so bad. So it can be many other reasons but i think the government funding and taxes from the town affect it the most.
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